Adapting to Blended Courses, and Finding Early Benefits

BOSTON — At Bunker Hill Community College, students worked in small groups, writing step-by-step instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But when a classmate was assigned to follow their instructions as literally as possible, it became clear that removing the bread from its bag was an important, forgotten step.

At Bunker Hill, this classic expository-writing exercise was part of an introductory computer science course, leading to a discussion of how computer programs can go awry without precise definitions. While professors at Bunker Hill chose the peanut butter exercise, the online lectures that students watch at home and most of the assignments are from an M.I.T. computer science class originally offered as a “massive open online course,” or MOOC, free to the world, but not for credit.

In Bunker Hill’s modified program, though, students come to class twice a week, pay tuition and get credit. So Anant Agarwal, president of the M.I.T.-Harvard online collaboration, edX, calls the community college pilot program a SPOC, for “small private online course.”

“On campus, it’s not about bringing it to scale,” Dr. Agarwal said. “It’s about improving the pedagogy, finding the best way to teach the material. On campus, we can blend online videos and interaction with professors.”

The blended course, teaching Python computer programming, is being tried at both Bunker Hill and MassBay Community College, but at different paces. The Bunker Hill class moves slowly, taking two weeks on each week of M.I.T. material. MassBay, whose students have more computer background, matches the M.I.T. pace.

“That’s one of the beauties of the blended model, that it can be infinitely personalized,” Dr. Agarwal said. “You can blend espresso, or you can blend coffee water. You can add as much or as little classroom time as is best for your school. And professors can add their own assignments, their own readings.”

While the Bunker Hill class has yet to reach the midterm, the results in the MassBay class have been good. Of the 19 students in the class, 18 passed the midterm — 16 with an A. (In the online version of the class, only 22 percent of the students got that far.) The community college students say they like having the videos, with embedded quizzes that let them see if they are mastering the material.

“This is my favorite class,” said Hans Johnson, a Bunker Hill student. “The format fits me because I can watch when I have time. I can pause and rewind and play back. If you miss it in a lecture, it’s just gone.”

For many, knowing that the class was developed by M.I.T. was a point of pride.

One of the Bunker Hill students — who patiently helps his classmates with the homework — had already taken the course on online, on his own, but was taking it again so that he, this time, earned credit for it.

The professors, who no longer have to write lectures and can use their class time to work closely with students, also enjoy the blended format.

“The students were immediately engaged in the course, and they love the instant feedback online, the green checkmark when they get the right answer,” said Harold Riggs, who teaches the MassBay class. “M.I.T.’s really added ambition in this course. It’s not just teaching Python, it’s teaching computational thinking. I can still do things my own way, but it’s like getting a very good textbook.”